


Time Is Never Wasted On Warmth

by Anonymous



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Xros Wars | Digimon Fusion
Genre: ...is what I would say if I didn't totally believe it, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Tagiru is in immediate need of having good people around him, Taiki wants to save people so what's new, Yuu helps him that's what's new, lots of hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 12:06:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13364358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: First things first: Slavery Is Bad. It's a fact we should all be aware of. It is never acceptable to rob a person of their dignity and their right of self-determination. The universe this story is set in works by twisted rules; and things happen that we should never, never allow to happen in ours.That being said, my favourite aspect of being a writer is being able to put characters into challenging and extreme situations and thinking about their reactions. I would be lying if I said this fanfiction isn't self-indulgent. However, there will be absolutely no smut and neither a sexual nor a romantic relationship between the main characters. That would include a massive power imbalance and therefore lead to an unhealthy relationship that I definitely don't want to depict in a positive light.If you are here for friendship, angst, fluff, hurt & comfort: You're in the right place! However, if any of the implied or directly depicted situations make you feel uncomfortable, leave. You should not force yourself to read on.And last but not least: Feel free to leave some of your thoughts in a comment. It would be much appreciated.





	Time Is Never Wasted On Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> First things first: Slavery Is Bad. It's a fact we should all be aware of. It is never acceptable to rob a person of their dignity and their right of self-determination. The universe this story is set in works by twisted rules; and things happen that we should never, never allow to happen in ours.  
> That being said, my favourite aspect of being a writer is being able to put characters into challenging and extreme situations and thinking about their reactions. I would be lying if I said this fanfiction isn't self-indulgent. However, there will be absolutely no smut and neither a sexual nor a romantic relationship between the main characters. That would include a massive power imbalance and therefore lead to an unhealthy relationship that I definitely don't want to depict in a positive light.
> 
> If you are here for friendship, angst, fluff, hurt & comfort: You're in the right place! However, if any of the implied or directly depicted situations make you feel uncomfortable, leave. You should not force yourself to read on. 
> 
> And last but not least: Feel free to leave some of your thoughts in a comment. It would be much appreciated.

“I really don’t like this place” mumbled Taiki Kudou who was currently sitting on a cushioned seat next to his close friend, Yuu Amano. Said person heard his comment and frowned. “I wholeheartedly share your opinion, but wasn’t it your idea to come here in the first place?”

Taiki sighed and stared at the red velvet curtain that hid the little stage of the auction hall from the views of the customers – for now.  
Today was a big slave auction and many guests filled the seats, either to watch or to buy new personnel. 

Taiki hated slave auctions, and his friend Yuu felt the same. They despised the thought of selling and buying humans like cattle. There were also the horrifying stories of the methods the slave traders used to “train” their “livestock”.

But that was exactly the reason why they were here. _It’s actually a bit laughable,_ Yuu thought. _We want to buy a slave to grant him or her a better life. Only one… and there are millions of them in the world!_

But better one than no one at all.

Slaves were very expensive and regular people didn’t have the funds to buy them. Taiki and Yuu, however, did. Yuu was an aspiring young director (his older sister Nene would often play a role in his movies, she was a famous pop idol and had experience with acting, after all) and Taiki… Well, not even he himself seemed to know what he did in detail. He worked in a high position for an international company and seemed to be everywhere at the same time. He had never gotten rid of his tendencies to jump at the call and overwork himself.  
Another thing that never changed about him was his altruism.

And that's why they sat here at a slave auction and waited for it to begin.

When the curtain opened, the hall grew quiet.  
The first few slaves to be sold were nothing extraordinary. A built man was bought by the owner of a sawmill as a woodworker. An older woman was sold as a housemaid. It continued like this. All those people would be used for work commonly performed by slaves. Taiki felt uneasy about leaving them at the mercy of their buyers, but he also knew very well that slaves in such professions had a good life compared to mine workers or… 

The next slave, a young man, was pushed onto the stage. A rising murmur echoed through the hall and Taiki and Yuu sat up straight all of a sudden. The slave handler smirked at the reaction of the crowd and roughly pulled at the chain that was attached to the collar the slave was wearing. 

The young man was clad only in white boxers and anxiously looked around with wide, honey-coloured eyes. His hair was brown and messy and had a weird red part sticking out at the front. The slave’s features were delicate and it was clearly visible that he wasn’t intended as a working force.  
“A pleasure slave…” Yuu whispered with disgust and horror evident in his voice. Sadly, those particular slaves weren’t a rarity. It was, however, very unusual for one of them to be sold in a place like this. Usually there were special auctions for sex-slaves in particular. 

_Absolutely disgusting. How could anyone use a human like that!?_ Yuu grit his teeth as he listened to the auctioneer praising the slave’s qualities. Meanwhile, the slave handler walked over to the trembling young man – _Dear god, he’s almost still a boy!_ – and roughly grabbed his crotch through the white boxers. The slave flinched heavily and whimpered. Taiki balled his fists in anger.  
“A virgin!” the auctioneer announced proudly at the slave’s reaction. Taiki and Yuu exchanged a glance. _We could try and save him,_ they seemed to tell each other with their eyes.  
“Bids are accepted from now on!”  
Yuu raised his hand.

_________________________________________________________

The atmosphere in the second floor of the building was quiet and calm, as opposed to the auction hall itself. Taiki and Yuu waited in a room for one of the clerks to bring the slave they managed to buy. They did feel a bit nervous – how should they start to interact with the most definitely traumatised boy?

Finally, the door opened and a man walked in, smiling politely at the two. Behind him he dragged the pleasure slave with the wild hair and the honey-coloured eyes at the chain still attached to the boy’s collar. The slave didn’t even dare to glance at his new owners.  
“Mr Kudou and Mr Amano, am I right?” the clerk asked politely. The two nodded. 

“As you surely know, we are here for the formalities of your purchase. The owner of this auction hall wants to make sure that every customer is satisfied with the slave they buy. Therefore, I would like you to convince yourself of the quality of the products sold in this house,” the employee explained, still smiling. Taiki grimaced at the word “products” but quickly regained his composure. The man didn’t seem to have noticed this and finally turned his attention to the restrained boy behind him. “Step forward!” he snapped harshly. The slave flinched, but did as he was told.  
“As you can see, this one is well-fed and at best health. I can also guarantee you that he is well-trained and completely docile.” The clerk winked at the two friends, who couldn’t hide their glares of resentment completely this time. Their counterpart looked bewildered for a moment and paused before dismissing it and continuing with the presentation. “I am sure you want to convince yourself whether this slave is fit for his purpose.” With that, he turned around again. “Undress”, he coldly commanded the slave. Before Taiki or Yuu could object to this, the pleasure slave obeyed the order. He pulled down his boxers and stared at the ground in obvious shame.  
Yuu tried to avert his gaze and gripped the leans of his chair so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Taiki had a very similar reaction to this inhumane treatment and turned pale with anger. “We will buy him”, he forced through gritted teeth. 

The clerk nodded, obviously pleased, and again failed to notice the reactions of his customers. He waved at the slave who put on his pants again and then fetched two sheets of paper from a cupboard. “Then please sign here… and here.”

After the paperwork was done, he spoke up again. “I am compelled to inform you that the law requires new owners to immediately mark their slaves with a collar after buying them. We do have a moderate selection of collars ready for our customers because of this.” Taiki nodded quickly. He just wanted to leave this building as fast as possible. “What about if I go and buy a collar and you fetch the blanket from the car?” he asked his friend. Yuu agreed and went to get something for the slave boy to cover with for the ride home.

The assortment the clerk showed to Taiki wasn’t that big, but he found a relatively soft leather collar that would do just fine. He didn’t feel comfortable about collaring somebody at all, but he wouldn't get around it here. At least leather was better than a steel ring or one of the barbaric constructions that could send out electric shocks.  
He carefully stepped towards the boy and tried to be as gentle as possible while fastening the collar around his neck after the steel one was removed by the clerk. He didn’t earn any positive reaction, however. Taiki could feel the tremors of the slightly smaller body and sighed. _We’ll just bring him home as fast as possible and then see about the rest._ Just as he thought this, Yuu returned with the blanket. He carefully wrapped it around the trembling boy who, despite his instinct, gripped onto it tightly. Yuu smiled apologetically as he clipped a leash to the collar and carefully tugged at it to persuade him into following them. 

The two forced out a polite farewell to the clerk and agreed to pay the bill within two weeks. Then they left the building as fast as possible, the young slave walking between them with a lowered head.

With a pleasure slave wrapped in a blanket on the back seat of Yuu’s car, they finally headed home.

____________________________________________________

The slave tried his best to keep up his impression of the perfect toy, like he was taught for most of his life. But even though all his ‘training’ had been for this one situation, he simply couldn’t adapt to the heavy feeling of finality in his chest. He would belong to these two young men ( _my masters_ , he corrected himself in his head) for the rest of his life. How long would _that_ be, anyway? Not long if he wasn’t able to please his new masters; he was sure about that. So, he tried to be the obedient and passive pleasure slave he was intended to be. He asked himself how soon he would have to fulfil his duties. His two masters seemed nice enough, but of course that could as well be just a façade. After all, nice people didn’t buy sex slaves, did they? 

He shyly looked around in the big house they were walking through right now. He supressed the urge to touch the golden picture frames and clung to the fluffy blanket around him instead.  
The master with the blonde hair and the blue eyes had unclasped the leash, probably trusting on the fact that the slave wouldn’t try to flee. He was right. How far would he come, anyway?

The other master, the one who had brown, tousled hair and gentle, grey eyes, stopped walking and turned around to him with a smile. “Before we go on, I would like to tell you our names.” _Oh, right. So that I can shout them in the bedroom later._ “My name is Taiki, and this is Yuu”, he said and pointed at the blonde. The slave nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor as much as possible. The next question caught him off-guard. 

“What is your name?”

The slave started to stutter. “I-I am just a slave boy, master. I h-have no name.” He saw his masters exchange a glance and hoped to God that he had said the right thing.  
Master Taiki – he decided to refer to him like this in his head – turned back to him with a strange look on his face. “Did your parents give you a name?”

The slave was startled by this question. He remembered little snippets of memories of a woman with a similar red streak in her hair like he had; calling him something he hadn’t heard in years.  
“My mother used to call me… Tagiru.”

“Well then, Tagiru… Would you like to see your room?”

____________________________________________________

Yuu and Taiki sat in the living room and stared into their steaming cups of tea, thinking. It had gotten dark outside, and for some time the only sound in the room was the crackling of the burning wood in the fireplace. 

“So… what are we going to do, Taiki?” Yuu asked after a while, referring to the problem of having to help a traumatised sex slave (said slave was soundly asleep in one of the bedrooms on the first floor, hopefully at least) and having, stupidly enough, absolutely no plan how to do it. 

Taiki sighed. “I don’t really know, actually… But I will think of something. And I’m certain that we made a good start. Being nice to him, giving him food and a bed, referring to him by his actual name…”  
Yuu looked at his friend with an unreadable expression. This didn’t go unnoticed, and Taiki gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s fine. At least we can help him like that. I really want him to be happy, you know? He deserves it.” 

The two were quiet again and slowly sipped their tea. Both were lost in their own thoughts about a certain matter that they didn’t have to mention, because they knew the other was thinking about the same thing.

Through the silence, they both clearly heard the scream coming from the floor above them.

Yuu stood up hastily and Taiki was alarmed, too. “He’s probably having a nightmare. We should check on him.”  
They ran to the bedroom Tagiru was sleeping in. On the corridor they could already hear the boy whimper.

As they entered the room they were greeted by the sight of Tagiru tangled in the bedsheets, moving around restlessly and making pitiful sounds.  
“Tagiru”, Taiki said loudly, trying to wake him. When this didn’t work, he walked over to the bed and gently shook the boy. Tagiru woke up with a start and stared at his owners with wide, tearful eyes. Then he started to tremble heavily.

_____________________________________________________

_This is it,_ thought Tagiru, unable to hide his tears. He had woken up from a terrible dream, the content already forgotten, just to find his two masters in his new bedroom, approaching him.  
_It’s just the first night, and I already messed up. Masters don’t want to be disturbed by their slaves. They will want to punish me; and they probably also want to… claim me._  
He tried with all his might to stop his tears and trembling, but to no avail. _I am a terrible slave. I can’t even hide my emotions well enough._

This was the moment when Master Taiki hugged him.

______________________________________________________

Yuu watched as his best friend desperately tried to comfort the young slave. Tagiru seemed to be shocked for a moment and then started to cry even harder. Taiki tried to soothe the boy with his soft embrace and gentle words. When it didn’t work, he desperately looked at Yuu for help. 

The blond knew what his friend intended to do, and he didn’t think that it would work. But if he knew one thing about Taiki, then it was the fact that his intuition when dealing with people could always be trusted.  
Yuu laid down on the king-sized bed on the other side next to Tagiru, while Taiki carefully placed the young slave in the middle without letting go of him and then laid down, too.  
Tagiru was now in the middle between them, and Yuu also wrapped his arms around the terrified boy who was still crying. “Shhh”, made Taiki and gently caressed the slave’s messy brown hair with one hand in order to calm him down.

That finally seemed to help a bit because the two friends could feel the sobs getting less heavy. The first thing Tagiru said, however, was: “I’m sorry, my masters… I must have angered you, but I’m ready now. Do as you want with me…”

Taiki and Yuu stopped in their movements and looked at the boy with horrified expressions. “Tagiru, we are not going to have sex with you or do anything of that kind”, Yuu started to explain in a tone he hoped was reassuring.  
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault… I am a bad slave, aren’t I…? You surely want to return me now…” the boy whispered, followed by a sob.

“Remember what I’ll tell you now, Tagiru. Something like that would _never_ be your fault. Also, Yuu meant it when he said we wouldn’t do anything sexual. But that has nothing to do with you being a bad slave. We respect you, because you’re a human being like us. We don’t want you to be our pleasure slave”, Taiki told him in an insistent tone. 

“You really mean that? You won’t use me?”  
Taiki and Yuu both nodded, even if Tagiru couldn’t see Yuu as he was lying behind him. 

“But… why did you buy me, then?”  
Taiki tightened his embrace around the frail and timid-looking slave boy. “We couldn’t just let you be bought by people who would use a boy like you. We… want you to be happy, Tagiru.”

Finally, after these words, all dams broke and Tagiru buried his face in Taiki’s chest, crying his heart out. Yuu shifted closer, too, so he could properly hug the boy.  
They didn’t know for how long they were lying there like that, but at some point Taiki and Yuu realized that Tagiru had fallen asleep from emotional exhaustion. They decided to stay there with him and smiled at each other, glad they finally managed to build a little bit of trust between them and the slave. After a while, they also dozed off.

________________________________________________________

“Tagiru, it would probably be good if you took a bath. Is that okay for you?” Taiki asked on the next morning, after breakfast.  
The boy looked at him with wide eyes and then nodded.  
Yuu smiled at him. “Do you want to take it alone or do you need help?”

“…help”, the boy whispered, looking away. Taiki sighed. Based on his reaction, Tagiru probably had bad experience with that practice. It made sense, though: he didn’t expect that the slave handlers had been gentle while washing the slaves.  
Taiki watched the trembling boy closely on the way to the bathroom. Him taking a bath would also be a good opportunity to check him for injuries inflicted during his “training”. Taiki felt his back hurt at the thought, but he quickly dismissed it.

To his surprise, however, Tagiru’s body proved to be completely free of bruises, scars or anything of that kind, even after closer observation than yesterday in the auction hall.  
_That’s odd. Slave handlers always use brutal punishments to train the slaves, even if they obey. So, what did they do to him to make him so timid and frail?_

But then it finally dawned on him.  
_They didn’t want to damage his body, so they used something different…_

“They used electric shocks on, you, didn’t they?”  
Tagiru flinched and stared at Taiki with wide, fearful eyes. This was answer enough for him. 

“Those… bastards!” Yuu cursed.

Tagiru had curled himself up and was hugging his knees while Yuu carefully dried his hair with a towel. “Can I ask you what they did exactly?” the latter asked softly.  
The boy nodded weakly. “They always had these… things with them. They looked like big black sticks… And when I didn’t behave, they would use them on me. Even if I did behave…” He sobbed loudly. “It- it hurt so much! They said that I should be glad that I was special and that they didn’t use whips… That I would be damaged property then…”

Yuu gently patted the back of the now crying boy, while his expression wasn’t gentle at all. _He looks like he wants to hunt them down and use their methods on them,_ Taiki thought and realised that he couldn’t really blame his friend. 

“M-master Taiki…”  
The weak voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “What is it, Tagiru?” he asked and tried to keep the anger out of his voice so he wouldn’t scare the boy.  
“Can I ask you something…?”

“Of course you can. Go ahead.”

“W-why did you know what they… used on m-me when there a-aren’t any traces?”

Taiki let out a deep breath. “I think I should show him”, he said to Yuu. His friend’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?” he asked. Taiki nodded and returned his attention to Tagiru who, as told by the look on his face, didn’t understand anything. 

He sighed and took off his shirt.


End file.
